11/11/07

Welcome to
The Cage Page!

This website is
dedicated to all who passed through the doors of The Bird Cage Theatre in
Orange County, CA. Feel free to visit and share your stories with us.

Our Founding
Fathers

"WOODY"
"STU

After 20 years
of performing melodrama at the Theatre Mart in Los Angeles, Woody and Stu
took over the Bird Cage Theatre and made it the icon it is today.

In the beginning , in a venerable amusement park in Orange
County, California, there was

"The Bird Cage" and it was good!

But it could have been better.

At least that's what park progenitor Walter Knott
commented to a woman who worked in his "Old Mac Donald's Farm" petting zoo.
The performances at "The Cage" were staged by students from Fullerton
College and as much fun as they were having, they were not professionals and
their school schedules made show schedules a little erratic.

Now, this woman at the petting zoo (if anyone knows her
name please send it to me) happened to work, in some capacity, at the
Theatre Mart in LA, where she became acquainted with Woodrow Wilson (No,
not the president) and George Stuart MacFarland, hereafter referred to
as "Woody" and "Stu".

They were doing the granddaddy of all melodramas -- The
Drunkard.

The show in LA was coming to a close

Woody and Stu were pro actors looking for a theatre

Walter Knott was a theatre owner looking for pro actors

An unnamed woman at the petting zoo
was the conduit and...

FATE TAKES A HAND!

In 1954, the classic melodrama, The Streets of New York,
opened at the Bird Cage Theatre with a large cast and in the pit, not a
piano but a band...

A BAND!! (ok, ok, an accordion and a banjo).

The shows were such a success that the theatre could never
close down long enough to make the structural modifications that they
wanted. So the open air theatre got a tent put over it, that the shows might
go on, even in the teeth of inclement weather. As the elements took their
toll, the tent had to be replaced. Then, to protect the tent, a tin roof was
erected. Which is how it stands today.

The shows were 40 to 45 minutes in length, one script per
season, each season finding a new story or a very old one as the versatile
young theatre had original melodramas as well as those tested tried and true
in her repertoire.

Versatile, did I say? You bet!

Because in addition to the melodramas, there was a series
of olio acts lasting about 20 or 30 minutes total. Ventriloquism, magic,
music, song, dance, comedy, every aspiring actor who wanted to play a part
also had to strum a mandolin or make a handkerchief disappear to get the
job. And at the exorbitant compensation of $3 per show, it was a job well
worth having.

And so it went, about an hour per show, 3 shows per day
weekdays, 5 per day weekends, changing shows every year. A show lasting over
an hour at a theme park might seem long today but at the time the pace was a
little slower, there was less to do so you had more time to do each thing.
If you went on a ride at this amusement park, it was on a train, a burro or
a stagecoach.

As metamorphosis and evolution are necessary to survival
so there came changes to The Bird Cage Theatre. The "band" gave way to the
"organo" a unique blend of piano and organ. So unique, however, that after a
time there was no one around who knew how to repair it and, ultimately, the organo gave way to a more conventional keyed instrument (I don't remember
what it's called). The 60's, the 70's and the 80's quickened the tempo
of life and shortened the shows on the stage of The Bird Cage to about 25
minutes, the olio's became a fond memory but we were now doing 6 shows a
day, 4 or 5 different scripts per day, seasonal shows such as the
rather burlesque Dr. Cleaver at Halloween, Dickens' A Christmas Carol and O
Henry's Gift of the Magi at Christmas, dramatic portrayals of the founding
fathers which helped to start an educational department at the park and, at
the end, being paid (be still my heart)

$7 per show!!! (call my tax lawyer!).

January 10 1991, the amusement park bought out the little
acting company, thus bringing an end to the Bird Cage Players as an
independent troupe. January 12 1997, The Bird Cage Theatre was closed,
bringing down the curtain on 42 years of melodramas and honest theatre.

Memories

Wanna be
found? Email the Webmistress with all the contact info you're
comfortable having published on the World Wide Web.

This
is where you'll find funny stories, poignant stories, heck, even ghost
stories of The Bird Cage.

Got a story
from onstage, backstage or in the audience to share? Please email to the Webmistress (who else?) and include
your name and the dates you worked at or frequented the Cage. I
may edit for space limitations...

It's Your
Line...

So what
do you want to do now?? Let us know any suggestions you have for
get-togethers or activities and see who's interested...